"Scripture... contains the perfect rule of a good and happy life". John Calvin

“Strange Discipleship”

Jan. 22, 2012

First Presbyterian Church, South Lyon

The Rev. Annemarie S. Kidder

Mark 1:14-20

Yesterday at Martie Bleeks’ memorial service, words from her granddaughter Ashley were read that she wrote when nine years old:  “My grandma is a real Christian.  Church every Sunday.  Belting out the tunes even when she can’t carry a tune.  [And] her blue eyes always laughing.”  Grandmothers and church seem to go together.  Sometimes you bring your own grandchildren here.  And I’m sure they have stories to tell about you and church.  One such story comes from a colleague in ministry.  She says that her grandmother couldn’t bear it to be on time for church; she had to be very early.  One Sunday she followed her out of the house, down the flagstone steps through the garden, almost to the car, when she noticed that her grandma’s skirt was missing.  “Mimi, “ she said, “you forgot your skirt!”  Her grandmother peered down over the elegant, hand knitted suit jacket, which covered an ample bosom, and sure enough, there she stood in her slip.  Needless to say, Mimi turned on the spot and went to set herself right.

Luckily U-turns of this sort are not happening every day.  But most of us have had them.  Things are going well, it’s business as usual, and then one day, bang!  An illness strikes, a loved one dies, a friend betrays us.  It’s like sirens going off and the police car pulling us over.

That’s the effect of John the Baptist’s preaching.  You stop dead in your tracks and turn around like Mimi in her slip.  And it’s the same with Jesus’ first message to the people:  “The kingdom of God is at hand,” he says.  “Repent and believe the gospel.”  The word “repent” sounds like old-world religion and we mostly use it in jest.  But in our scripture passage it’s like sirens that make us stop and turn.  In fact, the Greek word, which is metanoia, literally means Halt! Stop! Turn!

We can see this even better in the story of the first disciples being called.  Jesus is taking a stroll along the Sea of Galilee.  I imagine it’s early morning and the sun has just come up, so that its image is reflected in the water.  And as is to be expected there are fishermen casting their nets into the lake.  Quiet, peaceful, and calm, business as usual, we would say and not much new under the sun.  But then Jesus interrupts this scenic picture.  He goes near them and then doesn’t even introduce himself or make small talk. And what he says must have cut the air like a knife:  “Follow me,” he says.  “Stop this minute.  And turn around.”

Then, with two men in tow now, Jesus walks a little farther and he does exactly the same thing.  Only this time the fishermen he is addressing are sitting in a boat.  To be precise, they are helping their father and the other servants mend nets.  And again the startling wake-up call to stop and turn around.

We are told that Simon and Andrew, James and John all are leaving their nets at the drop of a hat.  They stop what they had been doing.  And they make a U-turn.

What is this story telling us?  It isn’t about leaving our day job and doing fulltime Christian ministry.  Instead, it’s telling us something about Jesus, namely that whenever and wherever he shows up there’s trouble.  He interrupts business as usual and brings things to a screeching halt.  Interrupting us in our routines, in our preconceived notions, in our ruts is what God does best.  Sometimes these interruptions come in form of a crisis, but most often they are annoyances:  people who are on our back, who bother us, who make life tough, along with things that just don’t seem to work out the way we’d hoped.  The Presbyterian pastor Craig Barnes wrote a book several years ago titled When God Interrupts.  In it he tells stories of people who went through crisis-- a divorce, mid-life, infertility.  And yet, he says, it’s precisely at these moments that God is issuing a personal call.  Halt!  God is shouting.  Stop! Turn to me!

Each time I read today’s story I am a little jealous of Jesus for the response he gets.  His sermon is only two words long and look at the results!  These brothers don’t wiggle in their pews or boat seat.  They don’t conduct a personal interview first to see whether he fits their needs.  They don’t even say, Wait a minute, first explain where you plan to go and I’ll let you know later.  These fishermen turn on their heels.  They spin around.  And isn’t that the way with God.  We don’t really have a choice when the truth hits us because we simply know that we know.  For some years I have been asking a friend to give his life over to Jesus by talking, praying, listening; and finally he admitted to me the other day that he doesn’t want the Lord to be in control.  Sounds like St. Augustine, the fifth-century church father, who writes in his book Confessions, “Lord, give me chastity, but not yet.”  Are you wrestling with a decision right now?  And do you hear yourself arguing, giving all sorts of reasons, practical, habitual, even spiritual reasons, why you can’t follow through and follow him?  I am not up to the job, we say.  The timing isn’t right just yet.  But our heart tells differently, this heart, the seat where God dwells, so that it is just as the Psalmist says, When today you hear his voice harden not your heart.  Follow this voice. 

Finally, there is the issue of personal loyalties.  Jesus calls two brothers right in the presence of their father.  In ancient days, a son owed unwavering loyalty to his father.  He  was expected to carry on the father’s profession.  But what we see here is a radical break.  Both sons leave their father to let him sit there all by himself in the boat.  To do the will of God, to follow Christ’s call, will mean a break.  Somehow we think we can make a cocktail in mixing family ties and Christ’s call, personal friendship and spiritual kinship.  But it doesn’t work.  It will leave us paralyzed and anxious.  Are we more beholden to longtime friends than to spiritual kinship in Christ? 

Follow me, Jesus says, and I will make you fish for people.  Stop whatever you are doing!  And turn around, like Mimi did in her slip, running back into the house, back to him, to be clothed by his righteousness and peace.  In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.